


Zip It

by JCapasso



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:14:34
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 20,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25201510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JCapasso/pseuds/JCapasso
Summary: As his best friend sat dying in his family crypt, Damon had a revelation that would change everything. He'd spent so long chasing the unattainable dream that he'd let the reality slip through his fingers. Is there ever a such thing as too late though?
Relationships: Alaric Saltzman/Damon Salvatore
Comments: 6
Kudos: 98





	1. Chapter 1

Damon sat outside the family crypt, turning over the white oak stake in his hands, trying his best not to think about what was happening inside, but not even considering the alternative of leaving. He was pulled from his thoughts by the voice of Dr. Fel. “I gave him a sedative. He’ll fall asleep first. He’ll go comfortably.” 

Like that was supposed to be any comfort. “Well…I offered to snap his neck. Put him out of his misery. He didn’t take me up on it,” Damon tried to keep his voice light as he reached for the bottle. The booze was the only way he was going to get through this. 

“You seem surprised,” Meredith said almost amused. 

“Well you’d just think a guy so used to dying wouldn’t want to drag it out,” Damon quipped taking a long drink. In reality it was him that didn’t want to drag it out. He wanted it over with. Waiting for his best friend to die slowly and painfully would be so much worse than just getting it over with. 

“Well it was nice of you to give him the option,” the doctor said, not touching that with a ten foot pole. 

Damon gave a huff. “Apparently my choices have been a little controversial lately.” And here he went into a damn pity party. God, he hated death. It always put him into a mood. 

“You shouldn’t leave him alone in there,” she told him, having trouble keeping her own emotions intact. 

“That’s what he wants,” Damon said wearily. ‘Please don’t make me go in there and watch him die,’ he couldn’t say.

“Is that really what you think he wants?” she asked gently before she turned and left. 

No, of course that wasn’t what he wanted. Who would ever want to die alone? Damon took a few deep breaths to steady himself before doing what he knew he needed to do all along. He got up and went into the crypt and sat down beside Ric, trying to figure out what to say. 

Ric beat him to it though. “Is this the part where you give me a dream?” he joked. “Rainbows and rolling green hills.” He chuckled painfully. Why the hell was Damon even here? He’d told him to go. He didn’t want Damon to carry this burden for him. He didn’t know if he could do this if Damon was here.

“I was drunk when I told you that,” Damon said wryly. God, if he wanted a dream, Damon would give him one. He knew that he didn’t though. That he was just making a joke. He just wished there was something…anything, that he could do to fix this. Waiting around for him to die was killing him. He was glad that Ric was keeping things light though. He didn’t think he could handle maudlin. 

“Yeah and I told you I’d use it against you,” Ric pointed out amusedly. Even if it did take until the very end. His last breaths used to tease his best friend. To make the pain of death easier on them both. It was fitting somehow that he would die how they lived. Side by side with a bottle of bourbon and making jokes.  
“  
Damn you,” Damon managed a chuckle as he pulled the cork out of the bottle again. He could almost let himself forget that Ric was dying. This was just another day. Drinking and having fun. But it wasn’t another day. It was the last day. The last chance he would have to say all the things he should have said before. “Sorry I killed you…twice.”

Ric chuckled breathlessly. “So I have to actually die to get a real apology out of you,” he joked. 

Damon managed a humorless smile. Pretty much. Damon Salvatore didn’t do apologies. Not usually. This was a special situation though. He held the half empty bottle out to Ric. “Drink,” he half said and half asked.

“Actually, I’ve been thinking about cutting back,” Ric said as the tears started to slip from his eyes. He was actually glad now that Damon was here. He’d thought it would make it harder, but instead it was easier. This was why he was doing this. Why he was letting himself die. To protect Damon. And Stefan and Caroline and Tyler, but mostly Damon. Even if it meant that Klaus had to live and wreak havoc over the world. Even if vampires continued to exist and kill countless people. Damon would still exist. If it cost his life, then so be it. 

Damon chuckled as he went to take another long drink. “Yeah. This stuff’ll kill you,” he joked before handing the bottle back. He tried so hard not to see the tears slipping from Ric’s eyes as he started to lose control over his emotions. He tried so hard to keep his own in check. At least until it was over. He barely managed to resist reaching over to wipe the tears away. And holy crap. How was it that he could be so blind as to miss what was right in front of him until it was too late. Spending so long chasing the unattainable dream that he’d missed the reality. And now his best friend was dying. And taking Damon’s heart with him. He didn’t even get a chance to say anything else before Ric was asleep. 

He sat there for a few more minutes, turning over the new revelations in his mind even as he tried to forget them. What the hell was the point in realizing that he was in love with his best friend as he died? Why did it matter whether he figured out how and when and why this happened? It didn’t. It was over. There were no more chances. No matter how much part of him wanted to shake Ric awake to tell him, he knew it was a bad idea. For one, it wouldn’t even work. He wasn’t just sleeping. He was sedated. For two, it would just make it so much harder for both of them. 

It wasn’t long before he couldn’t take sitting here anymore. He finished off most of the bottle and fumbled with the cork for a moment before he managed to get it back on and left it there with Ric. Once last drink left in the bottom. For his best friend and love that would rest there with his ancestors in the family crypt. He walked out the doors, trying to keep his emotions from overwhelming him before he had a distraction to help. What the hell was Bonnie doing here? He realized that something was very wrong when she put him down and continued into the crypt while Damon was too weak to stop her. 

By the time Damon was recovered enough to do anything, Ric was gone and Bonnie was almost dead. He rushed over and instinctively bit his wrist open to feed her his blood. Wasn’t it just his life that now he was being forced to chase down and kill Alaric. Right after he realized how much he loved him. Well the other him at least. The one that wasn’t a psycho vampire hating killer. The only good thing that happened was that they managed to desiccate Klaus. 

When Elena started talking about how she couldn’t choose between him and Stefan, he had no idea what he even wanted anymore. On one hand, with Ric gone, she was his last chance. But at the same time, did he even want her anymore? Was the dream worth it if the reality was gone? He knew that he could never be what she wanted. What she needed. He would never be able to be the good guy. Not for long anyway. He was too broken and no matter how badly she wanted to fix him, he could never be fixed. She couldn’t understand that, but Ric did. Ric didn’t care how broken he was. But now Ric was gone and he was more broken than ever. In the end, he just didn’t say anything and walked away. Since he didn’t know what he wanted, he might as well leave it in her hands. On the off chance she chose him he would give her as much as he could until it wasn’t good enough anymore and then watch her walk away. 

In the end, she didn’t choose him though. And he was surprised at how glad he was of that. Not that the rejection didn’t hurt, of course. It did. A lot. Just not nearly as badly as he’d expected. Not nearly as badly as the first single punch from the killer inhabiting Ric’s body. Or the second or the third punches. And it definitely didn’t hurt anywhere near as badly as the words that followed. “You’re not gonna fight back?” Psycho Ric asked. 

No, he wasn’t going to fight back. There was no point. All it would do is break him further. To have Ric’s blood on his hands. Literally. He couldn’t live with that. “You’re kind of invincible, Ric,” Damon told him. 

“Don’t call me that,” he snapped, kicking Damon in the face. “We’re not friends.” The Ric that was pushed aside, a prisoner in his own mind, was fighting to get out. They /were/ friends. Damon was his best friend. His everything. He couldn’t let this happen. But he didn’t know how to stop it. All the fighting in the world wasn’t doing any good. 

“We were,” Damon said sadly. 

“Our friendship was part of the problem. It’s what kept me weak,” Alaric said. Ric countered that statement with, ‘No. It’s what kept me strong. It’s what kept me from breaking a dozen times. It’s what kept me going every day.’ If his alter ego heard him at all though he was ignoring it. “It’s also why it took so long for the real me to break through…And now I’m gonna break you.” 

Alaric had no idea how much hope that statement gave to both Damon and the other, weaker part of himself. How much strength it gave them both to know that their bond had held him back for so long. Maybe it could again. When his next blow nearly knocked Damon out, Damon just asked weakly, “Is that all you got?” He was done just taking it. When the stake went for his heart, Damon caught it, and used both feet to kick him away. Maybe if he could weaken this one enough, his Ric might come back. Even just for a minute. Long enough to get a foothold. Long enough for him to say goodbye. 

No sooner than he started fighting back though, the unthinkable happened. When Ric stumbled, clearly losing strength, Damon managed to catch him. As he withered, all Damon could do was cry in denial, “No. No, no, no. Ric…Ric! No. You are not dead. You are not dead.” For the second time in his entire vampire life, he couldn’t hold back his tears as Ric died in his arms. Not as a human headed for peace, but as a vampire headed for the solitude of the other side.


	2. Chapter 2

Damon managed to hold it together for the most part for the next few days. Even as everything fell apart. Elena was a vampire now and almost dying because she wouldn’t drink human blood, the whole council was blown up and everyone kept suspecting him, an uber hunter was in town. It was the stupidest thing that ended up setting him off though. The damn lanterns. He took off and found himself at Ric’s gravestone. The one that he’d had made personally since no one else seemed to bother with everything else going on. “They’re floating lanterns in the sky. Do you believe that?” Damon asked incredulously. “Japanese lanterns as a symbol of letting go of the past…well here’s a newsflash. We’re not Japanese,” he said bitterly, taking a long drink of the bottle. 

Ric watched on sadly. He’d spent a lot of time watching over Damon since he’d crossed over. When Damon left his seat open at the bar, he’d sat there. He spent as much time watching over Damon as he had Jeremy and Elena combined. He wished more than anything that he could do something to help Damon through this. That Damon didn’t have to be alone. Instead he was stuck sitting here watching as Damon talked to his gravestone. 

“You know what they are? Children,” Damon scoffed. “Like lighting a candle is going to make everything okay. Or even saying a prayer. Or pretending Elena’s not gonna turn out just like the rest of us murderous vampires. Stupid, delusional, exasperating, little children.” Maybe it was because Damon had been older when he’d turned, but even Stefan, with all his years, was just like them. How could he have ever thought that he’d wanted to be part of that? Maybe he was just as delusional. Or maybe he wished that life really could be that easy. He took another long drink, getting drunker by the minute. 

“And I know what you’re gonna say. ‘It makes them feel better, Damon.’ So what? For how long? A minute? A day? What difference does it make? Because in the end, when you lose somebody, every candle, every prayer is not gonna make up for the fact that the /only/ thing you have left…is a hole in your life where that somebody that you cared about used to be…and a rock. With a birthdate carved into it that I’m pretty sure is wrong.” Damon paced for a moment before sitting back down. This time on the gravestone itself. “So…thanks friend. Thanks for leaving me here to babysit. I should be long gone by now. I didn’t get the girl, remember. Now I’m just stuck here fighting with my brother and taking care of the kids.”

Ric smiled sadly. He did know that. He had no idea what Elena was thinking not choosing Damon. Then again, like Damon said, she was a child. She didn’t have a clue what she was missing. Oh how he wished he could tell Damon that. He knew it wouldn’t help though. He knew that nothing he could say could take away the pain that Damon was feeling. The loneliness that he was drowning in. “I miss you too, buddy,” he whispered despite the fact that Damon couldn’t hear him. 

“The funny thing is though…I’m actually glad. How stupid is that?” Damon huffed. “All that time fighting for her, and I don’t even want her anymore. She was never even what I wanted in the first place. I was just too stupid to see it. She was a dream. The happy ending where we ride off into the sunset and she makes me the good guy that I’ve always wanted to be. None of it was ever real. It never could have been. And it took losing what I really wanted for me to realize that,” Damon sighed as he got up, staggering slightly. He traced his fingers over Ric’s name on the stone. 

“It’s funny, you know? All that talking we did over drinks and never did the subject of sexuality come up. I don’t even know how you felt about guys in general. I wish I had known. I wish I had asked. Most of all I wish I had realized what was right in front of me before I lost the chance forever. Maybe things could have been different. Maybe all this could have been prevented.” Damon shook his head sadly. “Or maybe you just would have laughed at the stupid delusional vampire who dared to think that he could ever deserve love. Who was naïve enough to believe in a happy ending. Who was ridiculous enough to fall in love with his best friend,” Damon blinked the tears from his eyes, not letting them fall as he made his way back to the bench, sitting next to the invisible form of his shocked best friend. “Would it have even mattered if I’d figured it out sooner? Would it have changed anything? Would you have cared?” He put his head in his hands for a moment before taking another long swig of the bottle. He put the cork back in and got up, setting it on the gravestone. “I guess I’ll have to spend the rest of my eternity wondering now, won’t I?” 

“No, Damon. You won’t,” Ric whispered as Damon’s form faded into the distance. The least he could do is give Damon an answer. He wasn’t delusional. He did deserve love. He /was/ loved. At the very least he needed to know that. Ric got up and headed for the Gilbert house. The worst thing about the other side was having to walk everywhere. Unless you were lucky enough to hitch a ride, but Damon had already left. 

It took him hours to walk there, and then had to wait a little while for Jeremy to get home, but once he did, he focused hard on making himself visible. “Jeremy,” he called. It took a few tries to make it, but finally Jeremy turned to look at him. 

“Ric?” he asked surprised. “I thought you were gone.”

“I told you I’d always be watching over you,” Ric said with a sad smile. 

“I thought you meant…you know…figuratively. You’re not…always here or anything are you?” Jeremy asked worriedly. 

Ric couldn’t help but laugh at that. “No, I do have other people to watch over too. That’s why I’m here, actually. Would you be willing to pass on a message for me?” 

“What kind of message to who?” Jeremy asked curiously. 

“I need you to tell Damon something,” Ric said. “Tell him that it would have mattered. And it would have changed /everything/.” 

“What would have?” Jeremy asked confused. 

“He’ll know what I mean,” Ric said with a smile. He wasn’t going to be clearer. Not while using Jeremy as a conduit. That would be enough. He hoped. 

“Oookay…” Jeremy said as he pulled out his phone to call Damon. 

“What?” Damon answered testily. 

“Ric wanted me to give you a message,” Jeremy said quickly before he could end up on the wrong side of Damon’s temper. He was obviously in a mood. 

“That’s not the kind of joke you want to play on me right now,” Damon said dangerously as he opened his third bottle of the night. 

“It’s not a joke. He’s standing right here,” Jeremy assured him nervously. Damon definitely sounded drunk. And upset. Which was never a good sign. 

“Oh yeah? Then ask him what it was he used against me in the crypt?” Damon asked skeptically. 

“What did you use against him in the crypt?” Jeremy turned to ask Ric. 

Rich laughed and shook his head. Typical skeptical Damon. “Rose’s dream.” 

“Rose’s dream? What does that mean?” Jeremy asked confused. 

“Okay, I believe you,” Damon said testily before any more information than that could be spilled. “What’s the message?”

“He wanted me to tell you that it would have mattered and that it would have changed everything. He said you’d know what he meant,” Jeremy told him. “Damon? Damon!” Jeremy sighed in irritation and turned back to Ric. “He hung up.” 

“That’s okay,” Ric said wryly. “He heard you. That’s the important thing.” 

“You know, if you’re gonna be popping up and pitting me against pissy vampires, keeping me in the dark is a little rude,” Jeremy joked. 

“Don’t worry. I don’t plan to make a habit of it,” Ric chuckled. “It’s too hard to appear like this. I can’t do it often.” 

“Okay,” Jeremy said sadly. “But…feel free to stick around anyway though. If you want to. Just don’t be a creeper.” 

Ric laughed heartily and nodded. “I’ll be sticking around, but don’t worry. There are plenty of things I’m not interested in seeing.” Things took a turn for the more serious. “Take care of yourself, Jeremy. And take care of Elena. She won’t let on how much she’s struggling but she is. She needs you more than you know.” 

“I will,” Jeremy promised. “You take care of yourself too. If you can…I guess.”


	3. Chapter 3

As Ric faded from Jeremy’s view, he turned to find himself face to face with someone he’d never seen before. At first, he thought she was part of the real world and was about to dismiss her, but then she looked right at him. “You love him,” she guessed. “Damon, I mean.”

“You can see me? How?” Ric ignored her half question. 

“I am a witch. We can interact with others here. When we choose to,” she told him. 

“I see,” Ric said tensely. “Well I don’t care how you witches feel about vampires, but yes. I love him. Punish me for it if you must.” He’d heard enough about how judgy witches were and how they were natural enemies of vampires and so on, and he doubted she was here and asking him that for any good reason.

“You misunderstand me,” she said with a smile. “I wouldn’t punish you for it. Just the opposite in fact.”

“What?” Ric asked confused. 

“I apologize. I should have introduced myself. I’m Emily,” she told him, wondering if he would recognize her name. 

“Emily Bennett?” Ric asked with wide eyes and she nodded. “I thought you didn’t like Damon. You didn’t want him to be a vampire.”

“I didn’t want him to be a vampire, that’s true. But it was /because/ I liked him. You see, Damon has always had a habit of taking everyone’s burdens for his own. I don’t know if you’ve realized this.”

“Oh, I have,” Ric snorted. “Believe me.” 

“If anyone deserved peace, it was him. I feared what would become of him should he be subjected to the curse of vampirism. The burdens he would bear. They have been more than any soul could hope to carry and they have broken him so many times,” she said sadly. 

“I know,” Ric sighed. “But he doesn’t let it keep him down.” 

“No. He doesn’t,” Emily smiled. “I have seen him shatter beneath the weight of the world more than once, but somehow he always finds the strength to put himself back together and carry on. He has always been so strong, even as a child.”

“You knew him as a child?” Ric asked curiously. “Did you know Stefan too?”

“Stefan was a cruel and capricious child,” Emily said distastefully. “But that was perhaps partially Damon’s fault.”

“What do you mean?” 

“In an effort to save his brother from their father’s abuse, Damon shouldered it all. Every beating, every scar, every burn that should have been Stefan’s, Damon bore in his place. To protect his little brother. So that he would never know such cruelty. Such pain. As a result, Stefan never had to face the consequences of his actions and he became the one to dish out such treatment instead,” Emily explained. 

“I’ve never seen any scars on Damon. Did becoming a vampire heal them?” Ric asked. They hadn’t healed his, so he was confused. 

“No, I did. He was my best friend. We had to meet in secret in the woods behind his house. I always took the time to heal him from his injuries as much as I could. I got rid of the scars before they could set.” 

“He never mentioned that you were friends,” Ric said with a smile at her. 

“It is likely too painful for him to remember. Our friendship ended when we were sixteen. And it was the first fight that he ever had with his brother. No matter how bad Stefan got, Damon would never hear a harsh word against him. Until the day that Stefan followed him to meet me. And then went to get their father. Like he always had with Stefan, he bore the beating meant for me as well and I didn’t see him again after that until I found myself in their home bound to Katherine by a life debt.” 

“You love him too,” Ric guessed. 

“I do. Very much,” Emily said with a smile. “But not in the way you’re thinking. He was like another brother to me. I’ve spent a great deal of time watching over him, and I’ve noticed that you have too. After his confession at your graveside tonight and your promise that he wouldn’t have to wonder, I followed you. To see what you were going to do.” 

“What I don’t get…if you cared so much, why did you destroy the amulet he needed to open the tomb?” Ric asked. Damon had been so bitter towards Emily for that. 

Emily sighed sadly and looked away. “Because I had learned that Katherine wasn’t there. I had given him the amulet so that he could get his love back. He would have been heartbroken to find her gone. To learn that she had left him intentionally. I wanted to save him that. Even if it meant him hating me for it. I feared that loss would be the final straw that would break him for good.” 

“But it didn’t. He moved on,” Ric pointed out. 

“He did,” Emily nodded. “His strength won out yet again. But it won’t win forever. He needs help. Someone strong enough to stand by his side. To help him carry the burdens. Someone who can understand when he just needs to break and who loves him enough to help put him back together. Someone who can accept him as he is. Someone who will fight for him, even against his own darkness.” She looked Ric over for a long moment before asking, “Can that someone be you?” 

“How? I’m dead. He can’t see me or hear me or feel me. I mean, I could keep passing messages through Jeremy, but that’s difficult and I don’t see how that would be enough…”

“There is a way,” Emily told him. “But I need to know if you’re up for the task. If you /want/ the job, because if you have any doubts, it would be better to not even begin lest he end up completely destroyed.” 

“I can’t promise to be perfect,” Ric told her. “I can’t promise that I won’t ever fight with him or hurt him. But I can promise that I will always go back. I can promise that I will always love him. That I will always fight for him, no matter how bad things get. That I can and will support him and accept him, and I will bear anything I need to if it makes things the slightest bit easier on him.”

Emily smiled brightly as she saw the truth in his words. “Then I will help you get back to him. Katherine had me create a spell. A magical backdoor to death, but it would only work once and only for a vampire.”

“Wait…if I stay a vampire…what about the other part of me? The one that took over after I turned,” Ric asked worriedly. 

“That part of you will stay dead. It was never you in the first place. It was a perversion created by another witch who twisted a piece of your soul. You will remain yourself. But if you are to stand by Damon’s side for eternity, you must be eternal yourself.”

“Okay. I can live with staying a vampire,” he told her, not wanting to get the wrong idea. As much as he would love to be human again in some ways, not if it meant hurting Damon. “As long as I’m still myself.” 

“I would not send you back otherwise,” Emily told him. “Now come. We have work to do.”

“What exactly do we need to do?” Ric asked curiously. 

“First there are some things I must gather and you need to gather your strength. You will have to appear before your medium again,” Emily explained. “You see, the spell requires a Bennett witch on each side. My descendant will have to cast the spell from that side at the same time that I do here, and your medium will be needed to coordinate the timing.” 

“How were you going to do it for Katherine?” Ric asked curiously. 

“I was to kill myself in the event of her death and my mother would work from this side at a prearranged time,” Emily told him. 

“And you were willing to do that? Kill yourself for her?” Ric asked horrified. 

“I had little choice. From the moment she saved my life, it belonged to her until or unless she released me from the debt. It is one of the natural laws that a witch is bound by.”

“But Damon has saved Bonnie’s life more than once,” Ric pointed out. 

“But he has never called for the debt, and I doubt he would unless the circumstances were dire,” Emily explained. 

“Does he know? That he could, I mean?” 

“Of course, he does. But he also knows that it is a form of slavery and wouldn’t subject her to that unless he had no choice. Bonnie’s honor should have him helping her in any way she can anyway for it, but she is young and doesn’t understand such things. She’s never had anyone to teach her what it means to have another supernatural save her life.” 

“Even though he tried to kill her once?” Ric asked. 

“But he was stopped. Just as she was stopped from killing him after that. From there the slate was wiped clean.”


	4. Chapter 4

Ric headed to the Salvatore house once Emily left him. If he was going to rest, he was going to do it where he could watch over Damon. Once he got there, he started to doubt his idea of having Jeremy pass on the message. Damon was a mess and he could see the telltale signs of a bottle smashing in the fireplace. He reached out to touch Damon instinctively, despite knowing that Damon wouldn’t be able to feel him and sure enough, his hand went straight through. It did seem to help somehow though. Damon seemed to relax quite a bit at least. Maybe he could sense his presence somehow. 

Over the next few days, Damon seemed to perk up a bit, but not a whole lot. He was about halfway to normal though. Just when Ric was starting to feel strong enough to appear to Jeremy again, Emily returned. She shot a sad look at Damon before reaching her hand out to Ric. When he took it they reappeared in the Gilbert house, next to Jeremy’s bed where he and Bonnie were laying. Thankfully they were still clothed and Ric really wanted to make his presence known before that changed. “Jeremy,” he called, willing the boy to see him. 

“Ric! Come on, man,” Jeremy groaned jumping away from Bonnie. 

“Sorry,” Ric chuckled. “But I think you’ll forgive the interruption when I tell you why.”

“Ric’s here?” Bonnie asked curiously.

“Why then?” Jeremy asked Ric as he nodded to Bonnie. 

“There’s a way to bring me back,” Ric told him. 

“What? Seriously? How? What do we need to do?” Jeremy asked happily. That was definitely worth the interruption. 

“What’s going on?” Bonnie asked. 

“He says we can bring him back,” Jeremy told her. 

“Tell him to tell her to look in my grimoire and let three drops of her blood fall on the final page,” Emily told Ric. 

Once the message was relayed, Bonnie shook her head. “I can’t do magic anymore. The spirits are punishing me for trying to bring Elena back.” 

Jeremy paused for another message. “According to your ancestor, Emily…”

“Wait, Emily? She’s here too?” Bonnie asked excitedly. 

“I can’t see her,” Jeremy told her. “Ric says that she’s gathering her strength for the spell too so she can’t bridge the worlds. She’s relaying messages through Ric.”

“Wait if she’s doing the spell than what do we need to do?” Bonnie asked. 

“Apparently the spell needs to be cast by a Bennett witch on either side in unison,” Jeremy relayed. 

“Which brings us back to me not having magic,” Bonnie sighed. 

“Emily said that the spirits didn’t take away anything. They don’t have the ability to punish you. Your block to your magic is subconscious because you’re afraid of what they might do,” Jeremy relayed. 

“But Grams…”

“Is fine too. They can’t punish her either,” Jeremy told her. “Emily says you have to let go of your fear.”

“But if there were consequences for bringing you back, and they completely stopped me from bringing Elena back, how is this any different?” Bonnie asked worriedly. 

There was a long pause while the answer was passed from Emily to Ric and then on to him. “Because both of those were attempts to involve human souls. They aren’t immortal like vampires and this spell uses a loophole in that immortality. It’s a one-time use and can only be used on a vampire.” 

“So it would still bring him back as a vampire?” Bonnie asked worriedly. “What if it brings back the other part of him too?” 

“It won’t. Ric said that Emily is positive of that and wouldn’t even attempt it if that was a possibility,” Jeremy told her. 

“Okay…but why?” Bonnie asked confused. “How does she even know Ric? And why him? Why would she want to bring a vampire back in the first place? Why does the spell even exist?” 

Ric hesitated before relaying the message to Jeremy, making a few necessary changes. There was another long pause as Jeremy listened. “She wrote it for Katherine way back when to help pay off her life debt to her. She wants to use it now because apparently she and Damon were old childhood friends and she’s been watching over him and she’s worried about him. She says that he needs his best friend back.”

“Wait…she actually likes Damon? If she’s been watching over him then she has to know what he’s like…”

After another pause, Jeremy told her. “She says there are things about Damon that we don’t know or understand and wants us to go easy on him.”

Bonnie sighed and shook her head. “Fine, but he as to have had vampire friends that have died before, so why now?” 

“Because Ric has access to a medium…me…who can help coordinate things from this side. 

“Okay. That makes sense,” Bonnie admitted. 

Ric could feel himself starting to weaken. “Look, I don’t have much more time. Remind her three drops of blood on the last page of the grimoire. It has to be done at the place of Emily’s death. We’ll meet you there after dark of the full moon next week. Okay?” 

“Okay, Ric. We’ll take care of things on this side. Don’t worry,” Jeremy assured him. 

“And don’t tell anyone yet. This spell has never been attempted before and I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up if it doesn’t work,” Ric added. 

“We won’t,” Jeremy promised as Ric disappeared from view. 

Once he was gone which meant they had all the information they were going to get, Bonnie pulled the grimoire out of her bag and pricked her finger, letting the blood fall on the page which soon formed words. She spent a good while reading over the spell and she could see what Emily meant about it being a loophole, but the part from the spirit side confused her. That was probably because that part wasn’t complete. She assumed that Emily would know that part though at least. She just needed to concern herself with this side of it. 

Bonnie’s biggest concern though was her magic. If she really was blocking it herself, she had to find a way to get over that and fast. Everyone was counting on her. She tried to remind herself that the spirits wouldn’t and couldn’t punish her or Grams for anything she did. Hopefully that would help. She tried not to think about the fact that it was ultimately to help Damon and just concentrated on helping Ric which would also help Jeremy and Elena. If she worried too much about Damon it probably wouldn’t help her mental block, though she was curious about what Emily could see in him. 

It took Bonnie most of the time they had to work around her mental magic block, but she finally managed it. While she was doing that, Jeremy had taken it upon himself to collect most of the ingredients for the spell, but they were ready in time thankfully and headed to the house where all the witches, including Emily, had died. Then it was just a waiting game. 

They had been there for more than an hour before Ric appeared to Jeremy. “Just to let you guys know…I’ll be reappearing back where I turned into a vampire, but don’t worry about me. Apparently Damon’s in the graveyard so I’ll just track him down and grab a ride back with him.” 

“You sure? I don’t mind going to pick you up when we’re done,” Jeremy told him. 

“I’m sure. I need to knock some sense into Damon anyway. I’ll catch up with you guys tomorrow, but I’ll call you from Damon’s phone assuming I make it back.” Ric turned to look behind him. “Emily’s ready if you are.” 

“You ready Bonnie?” Jeremy asked her. 

“Yeah. I’m ready,” she nodded. 

“Okay…start casting in three…two…now.” When Ric faded from Jeremy’s view, he hoped that meant that it was working. 

Ric felt like he was being pulled in two as a scream pulled from his throat. His only consolation was that apparently Jeremy couldn’t see him anymore, but he caught the sympathetic look from Emily. She had warned him that it would hurt though, so he had expected it. It felt like it was taking forever as Emily continued to chant, but he knew that was just the pain talking. With the puff of smoke from the two bowls simultaneously, one in the living world and one on the other side, both of the spirits in the room disappeared. What Emily had failed to tell anyone was that doing this spell would consume her spirit. Nature had to have a balance. A soul for a soul. The real reason this spell was a one-time use.


	5. Chapter 5

Ric groaned as he lay on the dirty floor of the Salvatore family crypt and it took a minute for him to be able to move his limbs again. At least he knew he was alive again. Death never hurt this much. Once he managed to pull himself to his feet he walked out the door and headed for where Damon had placed his headstone. When he left to do the spell with Emily, Damon had just been starting his rant so he assumed he would still be there. As he walked up, he heard Damon’s voice and smiled. “…and why the hell would you send that message, huh?” Damon asked as he paced. “What good could it possibly do now?” 

“So that you wouldn’t have to spend your eternity wondering if you were loved or not,” Ric said from behind him. 

“So instead I just get to spent it torturing myself for what I could have had if I wasn’t so stupid?” Damon snapped, taking a long drink from the bottle. Ric bit his lip, trying not to laugh as he waited for it to dawn on Damon and he could tell the moment it did because the bottle slid from his hand and he spun around, eyes lighting up at the sight of him. “Ric?” he breathed out taking a few steps forward. He reached out his hand and poked against Ric’s shoulder. “Is this real or have I had more to drink than I thought?” 

Ric smirked and grabbed the front of Damon’s shirt yanking him into a hard, desperate kiss. He felt Damon’s arms wrap around him before sliding up as his hands slid over Ric’s face and through his hair. It was like Damon was trying to memorize every inch of him as quickly as possible in case it all ended. Once they separated, Ric asked, “That real enough for you?” Damon’s hand cupped his jaw as he looked into Ric’s eyes for a long moment before his hand slid to the back of Ric’s neck, pulling him into another kiss. This time slow and deep. “God, I missed you,” Ric breathed out as his forehead rested against Damon’s and he just breathed him in. 

“How?” Damon asked, desperately hoping that this wasn’t temporary or anything. 

“A spell. One Bennett witch on each side casting in unison. I’m back for good. Well until I end up getting staked eventually anyway,” Ric chuckled. 

“I’m guessing Bonnie, but who…”

“Emily,” Ric answered his question. “She misses you too.” When Damon huffed at the name, Ric told him, “She’s sorry about the talisman, you know. She only did it because she found out that Katherine wasn’t in there and didn’t want to break your heart when you found out.” 

“Great job with that plan,” Damon scoffed. “But since she brought you back, I guess I forgive her for it,” he said softly, brushing his thumb over Ric’s cheek. 

“I know that it was implied. I just didn’t want to pass it on so bluntly through Jeremy, but…I love you, Damon,” Ric knew it needed to be said. He wanted it all out on the table. 

“I love you too,” Damon whispered with a grin, giving Ric one more quick kiss. 

“Before we get too deep here, I need to use your phone real quick if you don’t mind?” Ric asked. 

“Yeah. Of course,” Damon said pulling it out of his pocket and unlocking it before handing it over. 

“Ric?” Jeremy asked hopefully as he answered the phone. 

“It’s me, Jeremy,” he told him. “It worked.” 

“It worked,” Jeremy told Bonnie, and Ric could hear the sounds of celebration. “You’re sure you don’t want me to come get you?” 

“I’m sure,” Ric told him. “It’s already pretty late. We can do the big homecoming thing tomorrow.”

“Why doesn’t everyone just come by the boarding house,” Damon suggested. “There’s plenty of room and we can make it a party.” 

Ric relayed the suggestion to Jeremy who easily agreed. “Okay, I’ll see you then, Jeremy. Thanks again. And thank Bonnie for me too,” he said before he hung up and handed Damon his phone back. 

“Waiting to break the news about us for the party?” Damon asked with a chuckle. 

“Yeah…about that…” Ric said hesitantly. When Damon stepped away and his face turned hard, Ric reached out and grabbed his hand, knowing that Damon was jumping to the worst possible conclusion. “I love you, Damon, and I want to be with you. I just…want to keep it secret for a little while. Give me a little time to settle back in. I don’t want the kids to think that I only came back for you. I need to reconnect and even get a handle on this whole vampire thing. Learn to be one the right way. You know?” 

“How long?” Damon asked tightly. 

“Couple weeks, tops,” Ric assured him. 

“You realize that keeping secrets in a house with vampires is just about impossible right?” Damon asked pointedly. 

“I know,” Ric sighed. “But maybe we can spend more time at my apartment in the meantime?” 

“Okay. If that’s what you want,” Damon agreed, clearly not particularly happy about it, but willing to allow Ric the time to adjust. “But we’re still friends as far as everyone else is concerned so I get to teach you how to be a vampire.”

“Like I would ask anyone else?” Ric laughed and pulled Damon in for another kiss. 

“We’ll get you a spare room at the boarding house for the time being too,” Damon told him. “That way you’ll be close to the blood if anyone asks and we can still steal a bit of time when no one else is home.” 

“That sounds good,” Ric told him. 

“And Friday night I’ll take you out for vampire lessons. Maybe even talk Elena into joining in before she self-destructs.”

“Yeah, that would definitely be a good thing. I’ve been watching over her too and I know she’s not doing well.” 

“That’s an understatement,” Damon scoffed. 

“And speaking of blood…”

“Right. Yeah. You’re probably starving, coming back from the dead and all. Come on. I have an emergency bag in the car that’ll last until we get back to the boarding house. I’m guessing you’re staying tonight since everyone will be coming by to see you in the morning?” 

“Yeah, and thank you,” Ric said relieved as he followed Damon to the car. He guzzled the entire bag of blood in seconds before they even made it on the road. Once they got there, Ric was glad to see that no one else was home and they headed down to the basement fridge for some blood. “As much as I would love to spend some time with you tonight, that spell was both painful and exhausting.”

“I noticed you were moving a little stiffly,” Damon said sympathetically. “I’ll go make up a room for you.” He zipped upstairs and had it ready in less than a minute. 

Ric followed him up more slowly, in too much pain to run right now, but he did pull Damon in for a long kiss. “Goodnight, Damon.”

“Goodnight, Ric,” Damon said with a smile, brushing a hand down Ric’s cheek before heading back downstairs. It was still too early for him to go to sleep. He sat in front of the fire with a book and a glass of bourbon, actually using a glass again for what seemed like the first time since Ric’s death almost two weeks ago. 

When Stefan got home he tilted his head curiously, hearing the light snores coming from upstairs. “Who’s here?” 

“Ric’s back,” Damon grinned. 

“What, what? How? Do Elena and Jeremy know?” Stefan asked confused. 

“Jeremy does. He and Bonnie helped to bring him back with a Bennett spell. It took a lot out of him though so I brought him back here, got him some blood and he passed out. Jeremy should be bringing Elena in the morning for the whole welcome back reunion thing once he’s rested up a bit.” 

“Wow. Well…that’s great. Are we sure there won’t be any consequences though? I mean, using magic to bring people back from the dead…”

“It was Emily’s idea apparently, and no one mentioned anything about consequences. I’m sure we’ll get the full story tomorrow,” Damon shrugged. He didn’t give a shit about any consequences right now anyway. Ric was back. Everything else be damned. 

“Emily?” 

“Yeah. I guess the spell had to be done by a Bennett witch on each side of the veil at the same time. And no I don’t know why or any more than that really. Ric was too exhausted for the full info and I don’t really feel like calling the little Gilbert to ask. I’d rather just wait until tomorrow.” 

“Yeah, okay. But I’m still calling Elena. She should know sooner rather than later,” Stefan said, already pulling out his phone. 

“Go for it. Just make sure she knows that he’s not up to company at the moment,” Damon told him.


	6. Chapter 6

Damon was up first the next morning, as he usually was. He had never needed much sleep, not to mention he’d never been able to sleep very deeply. Always on the alert for danger. Especially with the house unprotected by a human deed-holder and a supernaturally charged vampire hunter in town. His body had long adjusted to it though, so he was usually just as chipper as anyone else in the mornings. He had just started the coffee when he heard a car drive up. Elena if he wasn’t mistaken. He grabbed another cup for her and by the time she made it inside, he was pouring it. “Where’s Ric?” was the first thing out of her mouth. 

“He’s still sleeping,” Damon told her. “That spell really did a number on him.” 

“Maybe someone should check on him? I mean…if he was sleeping when Stefan called me last night that’s like twelve hours or something and since he was just dead…” Elena said worriedly. 

Damon sighed. “Okay. If it makes you feel better, I’ll go wake him up and make sure he’s okay. But if he bites my head off for it, I’m sending him your way,” he chuckled before heading upstairs. He was glad he got the opportunity to wake him up anyway. Damon stood in the doorway for a second watching him sleep before he went over and lightly brushed his knuckles down Ric’s cheek, only to find his wrist caught in a vice grip. 

Ric snapped awake to someone touching him and reacted on instinct, reaching out to grab it. When he opened his eyes and realized it was Damon he relaxed. Damon put a finger to his lips before leaning down for a long slow kiss and then stood back up. “Wakey Wakey. You’ve got company.” Ric couldn’t help but groan at the idea of getting out of bed. “If you need some more sleep, they can wait,” Damon told him. 

“No, it’s fine. I need to get up and work some of this stiffness out anyway,” Ric said wearily. “Just let me take a shower and I’ll be down.” 

Damon nodded and headed back downstairs himself to find that Stefan was up now. Probably heard Elena. “He’s gonna take a quick shower and then he’ll be down,” Damon told them, finally getting to his own coffee. 

“But he’s okay?” Elena asked hopefully. 

“Still stiff and sore apparently, but yeah. Otherwise he’s fine,” Damon assured her. After giving her as much as he knew about how Ric got back, which Stefan had probably already told her anyway, so why she was asking him too was beyond him, he heard the shower cut off so he headed down to the basement. When he came back up, Ric was having the stuffing hugged out of him by Elena, so he hung back for a minute until they were done. Once they were, he tossed Ric a bag of blood. “I grabbed one for you too, if you want to give it another try,” Damon offered Elena. 

“No, definitely not,” Elena shook her head. “Jeremy, Bonnie, and Caroline should be here soon and I don’t want to spend half the morning puking blood.”

As they headed back into the kitchen, Damon told her, “Let me take you to Whitmore tomorrow night. Teach you to feed properly. There’s a costume party at a frat house…”

“No, Damon. Absolutely not,” Stefan said before he could even finish. 

“She has to learn to feed properly, Stefan. She can’t go on like this. She’s barely getting enough to survive and that’s how accidents happen, and people get hurt,” Damon argued. 

“Damon’s right,” Ric chimed in. “I can already tell that I can keep control easier when I’m well-fed.”

“And he’s going with too, so it’s not like I’m talking about a romantic road trip type thing,” Damon rolled his eyes. Though it could have been with just Damon and Ric, but they both knew how important it was for Elena to learn control too. 

“You want me to kill college kids?” Elena asked incredulously. “Both of you?” 

“No one said anything about killing,” Damon pointed out. “Snatch, eat, erase. Easy peasy, everyone goes home at the end of the night.” 

“Like I would condone pointless killing?” Ric said a little hurt by the implication. 

Elena looked at Stefan nervously, but he just shrugged and said, “It’s up to you.” The fact that Ric would be going too did help Stefan feel a little better about the idea. At least someone would be there to keep Damon under control. 

“Okay. I guess,” Elena sighed just as the front door opened again and Bonnie and Jeremy came in. 

After a quick round of hugs to greet Ric, Bonnie pulled something out of her pocket. “A little welcome back present from Jeremy and I,” she said with a smile as she handed him the little box.

“What is it?” Ric asked as he opened it, but figured it out when he saw the ring resting inside. “A daylight ring?” 

“Yeah, we figured it would come in handy. Can’t exactly teach us history if you’re trapped inside all day,” Jeremy chuckled. 

“Thank you guys,” Ric said happily, hugging them both again before sliding the ring on his finger. It was even the same style as Damon and Stefan’s with an A on it for Alaric. 

“So what’d we interrupt?” Bonnie asked curiously, having noticed the heavy faces when they came in.

“Ric and Elena are coming with me to a frat party at Whitmore tomorrow night so I can teach them to feed without killing,” Damon told her. 

“Oh, okay. Mind if I ride along?” Bonnie asked. “I need to visit a professor there.” And she wanted to help keep an eye on Elena and get to know Damon a little better since Emily cared so much about him. 

Damon looked at Ric and Elena before shrugging. “Sure. Why not? The more the merrier.” 

“I could go for a frat party,” Jeremy said with a grin. 

“No, you won’t,” Elena was the first to say. 

Damon reached out and clapped a hand on Jeremy’s shoulder. “If we were going for fun, I wouldn’t care, but we’re not.” 

Jeremy huffed, but nodded. When Damon put it like that, he wasn’t so sure he wanted to watch the vampires feeding anyway. “Fine. I’ll stay behind.”

Since that was settled, Bonnie turned to Ric. “So you met my ancestor Emily? What was she like?”

“I didn’t spend a whole lot of time talking to her,” Ric admitted. “But from what I could tell she was kind, smart, talented…pretty much everything you would expect.”

“Did she say anything about me? Maybe give you some tips to pass on or something?” Bonnie asked hopefully. 

“There was one thing we talked about,” Ric told her. He wanted to make things as easy for Damon as he could and if getting the witch on his side completely would do that then that’s what he would do. “What do you know about life debts?” 

Damon set his cup down hard. “If we’re gonna be talking about that, I’m gonna head out for a while.”

“What? Why?” Ric asked concerned. If he’d realized the subject would bother Damon he wouldn’t have brought it up. 

“Because that kind of magic is finicky. I’m not taking the risk that I might make a snarky comment or give an explanation that the magic would take the wrong way, if you know what I mean,” Damon told him. “It’s fine. I have some things to do anyway.” 

“He’s right. It’s better if he’s not here for this,” Stefan added. “And I probably shouldn’t be either.” He’d saved Bonnie’s life before too. 

Once Damon and Stefan left, everyone else looked more than a little confused. “What was that about?” Elena was the one to ask. 

“Okay, you all know about Katherine’s connection to Emily, yes?” When he got nods all around, he said, “What you probably don’t realize is that Emily was bound to Katherine by a life debt. When Katherine saved Emily’s life, she called in the debt and Emily was essentially her magical slave from that point on.” 

“What? How does that work?” Bonnie asked worriedly. 

“Whenever a supernatural being saves a witch’s life, the nature requires a balance and that witch’s life belongs to the being that saved her until or unless the debt is paid,” Ric explained. 

“But then…Damon and Stefan have both saved my life before…” Bonnie said distastefully. 

“Yes. They have. But since they haven’t called in the debt, you’re still free, and they would never call in that debt.”

“That’s why they left? So they didn’t say anything that would do it accidentally?” Jeremy guessed. 

“Yeah. I don’t know Stefan as well as Damon, but I can tell you that Damon would rather die than enslave another human being that way. Emily said that your own sense of honor should have you willing to help them in any way you can within reason anyway. But she also gets that you don’t really understand this stuff and haven’t had anyone to teach you,” Ric told her. 

“So you’re saying that all those times that they’ve asked me for help and I’ve said no or argued about it, they could have forced me to do whatever they wanted at any time?” Bonnie asked horrified. She could believe that Stefan wouldn’t do that, but the fact that Damon never had surprised her. 

“Yes. They could have. Just so you know how serious it is…Emily had orders to kill herself if Katherine died so that the spell that brought me back could be used to bring her back. And Emily would have had no choice but to do it.”

“That’s disgusting,” Elena gasped. 

“I agree with you,” Ric told her. “But that’s how the magic works.”

“And there’s no way out once the debt is called in?” Bonnie asked nervously. 

“If you refuse to honor it, your magic will consume you, including your spirit so you wouldn’t even go to the other side,” Ric explained. 

“Couldn’t they just…I don’t know…call it in and ask me to do something minor to cancel it?” Bonnie asked. She hated the idea of that being held over her head forever. 

“It doesn’t work that way, according to Emily. You could technically be released, in that they wouldn’t ask anything of you anymore, but if they did, you would still be bound.”

“So when Katherine released Lucy, it was in name only?” Bonnie asked. “But then how was Lucy able to curse Katherine afterwards?”

“Because Katherine essentially gave her permission to by releasing her. And because she didn’t actually kill Katherine. If she had, then she would have died on the spot,” Ric told her. 

“So there’s no way out? I’m beholden to them both for the rest of my life?” 

“Like I said, they would never call in the debt. At least Damon wouldn’t…”

“Neither would Stefan,” Elena chimed in. 

“With as fast as they lit out of here when the subject was brought up, I believe that. Besides, if they were willing to call it in they would have already,” Jeremy tried to make Bonnie feel better. 

“I guess that’s a plus,” Bonnie sighed. She still hated it though. The idea of her entire life in Damon Salvatore’s hands scared the crap out of her. Stefan did to a lesser degree, but Damon was the real wild card.


	7. Chapter 7

When Stefan got back about an hour later, Damon wasn’t with him. “Where’s Damon?” Ric asked curiously. 

“I don’t know,” Stefan shrugged. “He said he had some things to do and he’d be back tonight.”

Ric didn’t like the sound of that. That probably meant he was doing something stupidly reckless that he didn’t want to get anyone else involved in. He pulled out his phone that Elena had brought over and texted him. ‘If you need backup, let me know.’ It was almost two hours later before he got a response. ‘I’m fine. Enjoy your party.’ Ric sighed heavily. That wasn’t a good sign either, but there was nothing he could do right now. He knew that no one else would understand. 

By the time that Damon got back, everyone else was gone and it was late. And Damon looked like hell. “You should have called me,” Ric said worriedly as he grabbed a blood bag to help him finish healing. 

“You needed the day to enjoy being back,” Damon told him. 

“Then whatever it was you had to do could have waited,” Ric argued as he helped Damon upstairs. 

“Every minute that bastard is here, we’re all in danger,” Damon told him. 

Ric got it now. This was about the hunter. “Well I hope you didn’t provoke him into doing anything stupid.”

“Well…about that…” 

Ric huffed and shook his head. “We’ll worry about it tomorrow. You look like you need some rest.” 

Damon pulled Ric into a long kiss, mindful of the fact that Stefan was in the house, before he gave in and went to bed. The next morning, Damon started hauling in boxes from his car and he and Ric helped to sort them until it was time to leave. They picked up Elena and Bonnie and headed for Whitmore college. 

Ric felt like an idiot sitting in on a college class with Damon and the kids as the teacher talked about witches, but they had some time to kill before the party started. Damon used the time for an impromptu lesson on picking targets. Once the time for the party came around, Bonnie quickly moved away from the group of vampires to talk to the professor who also happened to be there, and Damon told Elena to pick a target first. He wanted to get her fed since she was already on the verge of starvation. Ric followed Damon into the room where she had lured her target and Damon almost had to physically pull Elena away, but she managed to stop herself and compel the guy to forget. 

Once she had a bit, Damon turned to Ric. “Now girls are a little more difficult. They’re not as likely to just follow a guy into a private room, no matter how hot he is. You’re going to have to compel her to follow you. Can you handle that or do you want me to go grab your first?” He wanted to get the first one out of the way in private before releasing them to enjoy the party. 

“I’m not sure…I mean, I already feel out of place here,” Ric said nervously. 

“Okay. I’ll be right back then,” Damon smirked as he slipped out of the room. Elena was jonesing for more already, but was waiting patiently. When Damon got back with an inebriated girl, he told Ric, “You’re up.” 

Ric compelled her to be quiet before he started to drink, easily stopping before Damon even told him to. It helped that he wasn’t starving like Elena had been. Then he compelled her to forget and go back to the party. “That wasn’t so hard.”

“At a party like this, it’s usually not. More upbeat clubs are also good for grazing. One thing you want to keep in mind, despite how boringly heteronormative it is,” Damon rolled his eyes at that, “is that you want to stick with the opposite sex. No one looks twice at a normal couple but two guys or two girls are going to draw attention, and the whole point is to be discrete.” Once he saw that they got the message, he said, “Okay, so now that we know you can both control yourselves, let’s go out there and graze. Feel free to watch me for a while if you need to and just have fun.”

They all headed back out to the party and Damon immediately hit the dance floor while Elena and Ric hung back a bit to watch him. Only because they knew what they were looking for and were watching for it did they notice him feeding on the girl he started dancing with. To anyone else it would look like they were making out. Once he was done, he moved on to another partner and did the same. Elena was the next to hit the party, but Ric still felt too out of place. It seemed that even the shy ones could get lucky here though because it wasn’t long before a girl came up to talk to him and he took the opportunity to compel her for a meal. That gave him a little more confidence to get out there and he soon found himself getting lost in the atmosphere too. 

He wasn’t being nearly as wild as Damon and Elena, but he was drinking his fill and actually having a little fun. At least he was until he caught sight of Damon and Elena dancing and felt the familiar swell of jealousy. Thankfully before it could get too bad, Elena stopped and rushed out and Ric caught sight of Bonnie in the doorway. Damon just kept dancing though, until Ric went to grab him. “I think we’ve all had enough to drink for the night,” he said tighter than he’d intended. He didn’t want Elena and Bonnie going off on their own this late and getting into trouble. Especially with Elena already on a blood high. 

“Yeah, I guess,” Damon sighed, and they headed out after the girls. After hearing Elena’s freakout, Damon cleared his throat. “I’m guessing we should hit the road.”

“You were supposed to help her,” Bonnie rounded on Damon. “And you let her get completely out of control.” 

“She’s not out of control. She was having fun,” Damon argued. 

“This isn’t fun,” Bonnie said horrified. “She’s acting like a different person.”

“She /is/ a different person,” Damon pointed out. “She’s a vampire. We’re a predatory species. We enjoy the hunt, the feed, and the kill. When the guilt gets too bad, we switch off our humanity and we revel in it.” Ric shifted nervously at that. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want to turn off his humanity and kill people. 

“Is that what you want?” Bonnie asked hatefully. “For her to be like you?” 

“She already is like me,” Damon rolled his eyes. “And you know what makes me able to drink my fill and leave someone breathing and not rip their head off like my brother is that I can revel in it. I can make it fun.” He brushed by Bonnie heading for the car, not even bothering to wait for anyone to follow him. 

Ric took in his words and considered them carefully. He could definitely see Damon’s point. None of them had lost control tonight and killed anyone. Contrary to Bonnie’s belief and apparently even Elena’s, they had all been in complete control of their bloodlust. Because they were having fun. They were channeling those predatory instincts into something besides the kill. If they could do that they could also control the guilt and have no need to turn off their humanity. He spent most of the drive home trying to explain that to the girls, but he didn’t make much headway. It didn’t matter though. It kept him from having to talk to Damon. 

That helped until they were the last two in the car at least, and as soon as Bonnie got out, Damon asked, “Okay so what’s with the cold shoulder?”

“What do you mean?” Ric asked tightly. 

“I thought you were pissed about the same thing Bonnie and Elena were, but you explained it pretty well, so I don’t get it.” 

“It doesn’t matter, Damon,” Ric said dismissively. 

Damon pulled the car over. “Yes. It does.” He reached for Ric’s hand. “Look, I know that we haven’t had much time to deal with the whole ‘us’ thing, but…”

“But you have plenty of time to get down and dirty with Elena,” Ric snapped. 

“Wait, /that’s/ what this is about? You were all for her coming along tonight. She needed to learn control too you said. I would have been perfectly happy with tonight just being us and helping her some other time.”

“I’m sure you would have,” Ric scoffed. “Would have been nice not to have anyone else around to stop your dance floor fun, wouldn’t it?” 

“It was just dancing, Ric,” Damon rolled his eyes. “The same as we were /all/ doing with everyone else at that party. What’s the problem?” 

“Everyone else but each other,” he pointed out. 

“Okay, /you/ were the one who wanted to keep us secret. You don’t think I would much rather have been dancing with you out there?” 

“Just…take me home, Damon. Or better yet, I’ll walk,” Ric got out of the car and vamp sped back to his apartment, slamming the door when he got inside. He had turned the main area into a gym, but the bedroom was still intact thankfully. He went and got in the shower and went straight to bed, not wanting to deal with any of this right now.


	8. Chapter 8

Damon resisted the urge to go after Ric and have this out right now. He knew that it wouldn’t help and would probably just make things worse, so he headed home to blow off some steam there. Unfortunately, that ended him up in a confrontation with his brother which was the last thing he needed tonight. Apparently, Elena had already called him to cry on his shoulder about the horrible night and all the nasty things that Damon ‘made’ her do. It wasn’t surprising that it ended up coming to blows. It was probably more surprising that they hadn’t ended up killing each other. At least it gave Damon a way to blow off steam. Unfortunately, that gave all the pain and worry time to settle in and he spent most of the night drowning his sorrows before he made it up to his room to pass out. 

Damon had only been out for a few hours before the ding of his phone woke him up. ‘Can we talk?’ the message from Ric said. Damon took a moment to listen carefully before sending back, ‘House is empty.’ He’d be damned if he was going to go running to Ric after this. If he wanted to talk, he could come here. Damon did drag himself out of bed so he could have some coffee ready for them. He took a quick shower while it was brewing and had just gotten back downstairs when Ric got there. “I’m sorry,” was the first thing Ric said. 

Damon shook his head and handed him a cup of coffee. “You should know that I don’t want or need apologies. I would be a hypocrite if I did.” 

Ric sighed and nodded. He did get that. What Damon wanted was explanations. “I was being an idiot,” Ric admitted. “I was blood drunk, yeah, but that’s no excuse. I know that we were all dancing like that with everyone, but you and Elena…there’s so much history and unresolved feelings there…”

“Nothing is unresolved, Ric,” Damon snorted. “And the sum total of our history is a handful of kisses. I know exactly where Elena and I stand and it’s not anywhere you need to worry about.” 

“You’re telling me that if she came to you today and told you that she’d made a mistake. That she chose you instead of Stefan, you would send her away?” Ric asked skeptically. 

“Damn right, I would,” Damon said seriously. “And if you heard everything I said at your grave that day, then you know why. I don’t care what her choice is. /My/ choice is you.” 

“Okay,” Ric said with a nod, not sure how much he believed that, but there was no point in arguing about it. “Then…we’re okay?” 

“Not quite,” Damon shook his head. “Because Elena is still my friend. And she’s still my brother’s girlfriend. She’s still at least partially my responsibility. I’m going to be helping her. I’m going to be protecting her. I’m even going to be saving her life when necessary, and I can’t sit here and worry about whether you’re going to freak out on me every time I do.”

“You’re right,” Ric said wearily. “You don’t need that on top of everything else, and I should never have put that on you.” Three days in and he was already screwing everything up. So much for being able to help Damon carry his burdens. All he was doing was adding more. “I guess it’s just…we never really talked about where we stand now or where you and Elena stand and all that uncertainty hit me hard last night.” 

Damon considered that for a moment as he took a long drink of his coffee. “Okay. Then let me make it clear for you. I love /you/ and I choose /you/. Now and always. Yes, I still love Elena, and some part of me probably always will. Just as some part of me will always love Katherine, and if you ever tell anyone that I’ll have to kill you.” Ric snorted a laugh. “But Elena and I have no future together. With or without you in the picture. It could never last. And if you think I’m dumb enough to screw up the best thing I’ve ever had going after a pipe dream, you don’t know me as well as you think you do.” 

“I know. I get it. I wish I could promise you that it’ll never happen again, but you know I have a jealous streak and I can’t help that. What I can promise you is that I /do/ get it. Sometimes I might just need a little time to chill out to let it sink in. Can you live with that?” Ric asked hopefully. He should be okay now that everything was out there, but he couldn’t promise. 

Damon chuckled and nodded. “If you can live with my murderous streak, I’d have to be a pretty shitty boyfriend to make a fuss about your jealous streak. As long as I know that you get it and that you’ll get over it so I’m not wondering if I’m going to lose you every time, I can live with that.” 

“You won’t lose me, Damon,” Ric said relieved, moving closer to him, and reaching out to cup his cheek. And he had definitely caught the boyfriend word too. “Well not unless you did actually cross a line outside of my imagination, and maybe not even then.” It had already been proven that there wasn’t much he couldn’t forgive Damon for eventually. When Damon leaned into the touch with a smile, Ric moved forward and pressed his lips to Damon’s.

Damon instantly deepened the kiss, pressing Ric back against the counter and plastering himself tightly against him. For the first time since Ric got back, they had the house to themselves, neither of them were exhausted or injured, there wasn’t a crisis looming…not to mention make up sex was always the best. Ric obviously had the same idea because Damon’s shirt was ripped open almost immediately as Ric’s large hands ran over the toned muscles of Damon’s chest and shoulders. Damon wasted no time returning the favor, running his long fingers through the thick hair on Ric’s chest as his lips moved to Ric’s neck and shoulders, pressing breathless sloppy kisses over the sun-kissed skin. 

Ric’s hands wrapped around to grab Damon’s ass and pull him tighter against him as their erections rubbed together and he let out a moan that was echoed by Damon. Damon’s hands slid down to the front of Ric’s pants as Ric’s hands slid down the back of Damon’s. Then Damon’s phone rang, but he ignored it until he heard the voicemail tone and then it rang again. That usually meant an emergency. He growled as he pulled it from his pocket. “What?” he answered testily. 

“Connor has Jeremy and probably others hostage at the grill,” Elena said quickly. “I can’t get Stefan, but Tyler’s here and…”

“I’m on my way. I’ll grab Ric too,” Damon told her before hanging up. “Damnit,” he cursed, burying his face in Ric’s neck. 

Ric reached up to run a hand through Damon’s hair. “To be continued,” he sighed. 

“You better believe it,” Damon muttered before pulling back to give him another quick kiss and they started straightening their clothes. 

“If he’s got them at the grill, the tunnels run under there. It might be a decent staging point,” Ric suggested. “I’ll swing by my apartment and grab the maps of the tunnels and anything else we might need.”

“Okay, I’ll go ahead over to Elena’s. You can meet us there,” Damon told him, getting a nod in return before they both took off in opposite directions. 

By the time Damon got there, Tyler and Caroline were both there, Stefan still wasn’t answering the phone, and they were well on their way to a plan that Damon just had to refine a bit. When Stefan walked in, Damon spun on him. “Where have you been?”

“Coming up with a plan,” Stefan said holding Elena tightly as she hugged him. 

“Yeah, we have a plan. Plan is I’m gonna rip Connor’s heart out and I’m gonna feed it to him,” Damon snapped. Stefan didn’t like that plan much though, even when everyone else was on board. The hybrids were on the way and the whole street was blocked off, but Stefan was still being difficult. 

Damon’s phone rang a moment later and he saw that it was Ric. “New plan. The apartment across from mine is vacant and has full view of the grill,” Ric told him when he answered. 

“Perfect. That’s our command center then. We’ll be there soon,” Damon told him before hanging up and turning to the rest of the group. “Wolf-boy, you coordinate the hybrids, Blondie make sure the perimeter says secure. The rest of us are headed to Ric’s. He’s got the maps of the tunnels and all his weapons. Elena call the witch on the way and see what she has in her little bag of tricks that might help. Let’s go.”


	9. Chapter 9

Stefan headed straight to the grill to do some reconnaissance while Elena and Damon headed up to the apartment. Ric had the map spread out on the table already as he was mapping routes. Damon went to help him, while Elena paced nervously. It wasn’t long before Stefan called with intel about the hostages. When he got back, the arguments about the plan started back up, and Ric tried to take the middle road. Talk Damon into more caution and Stefan into less. Right up until Stefan let slip that he was working with Klaus. That changed everything. All it took was a glance from Damon as he asked Stefan if he was being compelled, and Ric knew what he needed to do. “I have a few more things across the hall that might help. I’ll be right back.”

No sooner than he left the room, Stefan made his move. He snapped Damon’s neck and then blurred after Ric to do the same. He pulled Ric back into the room and took both of their daylight rings. “Stefan?! What are you doing?” Elena asked horrified. 

“I’m not taking them in there if I can’t count on them to do things my way,” Stefan said firmly.

“If /you/ can’t count on /them/?!” she asked incredulously. 

“You think Damon cares about Matt or April? Sure, he’ll get Jeremy out for you, but then he’ll go right after Connor no matter who gets hurt in the process,” Stefan argued. 

“Fine, but what about Ric? You can’t possibly think the same about him,” Elena snapped. 

“You know as well as I do that when push comes to shove, he’ll back Damon,” Stefan told her, not entirely sure of that, but it sounded good. Either way, he knew that Ric wouldn’t hesitate to kill Connor and he couldn’t let that happen. 

“I don’t believe that,” Elena shook her head. 

“Well it’s still not a risk we can take,” Stefan said, getting ready to go. When Elena tried to argue to go with him he absolutely refused and said everything he could think of to get her to stay behind. Even the need to look after Ric and Damon until they woke up and he finally managed to get away. 

Ric and Damon woke up at the same time and it wasn’t until Damon tried to sit up on the couch that he realized his ring was missing and he rolled off the couch, falling on top of Ric who was laid out on the floor. “Damnit!” Damon cursed as he quickly moved against the wall out of the sun and was soon joined by Ric, who couldn’t stand up where he was laying either. 

“He took your rings? Why would he do this?” Elena asked worriedly. 

“Because he’s playing us,” Damon snapped. “All this stalling, getting hybrids, taking our rings…add it up.” 

“He’s either made a deal with Klaus or he’s compelled,” Ric figured out.

“Then I need to get in there,” Elena turned to go. 

“No, Elena. This guy’s dangerous,” Damon protested. 

“So am I, Damon,” Elena yelled as she spun back around. 

“Then you need to be smart,” Ric told her. “This guy doesn’t know you’re a vampire.”

“So you get as close as you can, and you kill him,” Damon told her. He never wanted her to become a killer, but under the circumstances there was no choice. She was the only one of them who could get out of this building and losing her brother would hurt her even worse than becoming a killer would. Elena nodded tensely and left. 

Once she was gone, Ric sped over to grab the tunnel map and brought it back to the dark corner before he burned too badly. “I might have an idea,” he told Damon, pointing out a potential route. 

By the time they made it into the tunnels, Stefan was coming through with Connor held prisoner. Too bad neither of them trusted him at the moment. “It’s over, Damon. I have him,” Stefan said. 

“Not after what we just went through,” Damon said coldly. “We had to punch through a boiler room basement into a septic tank to get into this stupid tunnel…but it’ll be worth it.” He eyed the hunter menacingly. 

“I’m taking him with me,” Stefan said firmly. 

“Just hand him over, Stefan,” Ric said just as firmly. 

“I don’t know what you’re up to or what Klaus has over you, but even if I have to go through you, I’m gonna kill him,” Damon argued. 

“Look, Stefan. You know I’m not a fan of needless death, but even you must see that he has to die. He will never stop,” Ric tried to reason with him. “He is a threat to all of us as long as he’s alive.” 

“You better back off, Damon,” Stefan warned as Damon started to advance. 

“Why? Because Klaus wants him alive?” Damon asked sarcastically. 

“This has nothing to do with Klaus. You’re just gonna have to trust me,” Stefan said evenly. 

“Trust you? After you knocked us out and stole our rings?” Ric asked incredulously. “We’re gonna need a reason before we can even consider trusting you again.” 

“Run. As fast as you can,” Stefan hissed to Connor before knocking Ric to the ground on the way to pin Damon against the wall. 

“Ric, go. I got this,” Damon told him and Ric disappeared down the tunnel after Connor while Damon fought with his brother. 

It didn’t take Ric long to catch up with him and snap his neck just as Elena came around the corner and she followed him back to Damon just in time to hear about the cure. Elena gasped and started to hyperventilate and Ric was quick to pull her into a hug to try and calm her down. When Stefan came over to help, Elena held up a hand to stop him. “No. You stay away from me,” she snapped. “Making secret deals with Klaus, hiding things from me…Jeremy could have died today, Stefan. All because you couldn’t let anyone else in on your stupid secret. Just…just stay away from me,” she cried before she took off down the tunnel again. 

Damon scoffed and clapped a hand on Stefan’s shoulder. “Great job, little brother. Haven’t you figured out by now what happens when you keep secrets around here.” 

“She’ll come around,” Ric told Stefan. “Just give her a little time to calm down.” 

“He’s dead isn’t he,” Stefan sighed in frustration. 

“Yes. He is. And it was still the right call. Cure or no cure,” Ric said confidently. “He was too much of a threat to leave alive.” 

“She didn’t…did she?” Stefan asked worriedly, looking in the direction she’d run.

“No. I did,” Ric said evenly. Stefan nodded and walked away, heading after Elena. 

Once they were alone, Damon walked over to Ric and reached a hand to his dirty cheek. “You okay?” he asked worriedly. He knew that Ric had never killed anyone before. Not as himself anyway. And he knew how hard the first always was. 

“I’ll be fine,” Ric said carefully. He wasn’t fine right now, but he would be. “It was necessary. And it was better me than Elena.” He paused a moment before adding the part that he knew Damon would understand better than probably anyone else in the world. “I’ll bear the burden so she doesn’t have to.” 

Damon nodded and pulled their foreheads together, his other hand joining the first on the other side of Ric’s face. He was more sure than ever now that he’d made the right choice. Still, “If I could bear it for both of you…”

“No, Damon,” Ric said firmly. “I’m strong enough to carry my own burdens. And to help you carry yours. We’ll /both/ carry it. For all of them. Together.” 

Damon screwed his eyes shut at the wave of emotion as he took a deep breath and nodded, giving a comforting squeeze to Ric’s neck. “Together then,” he whispered.


	10. Chapter 10

Damon and Ric went to take care of the body before heading back to the Boarding house, letting Stefan and Elena work out their own crap. Between the sewer and the dirt from burying the body, they were both in desperate need of showers before worrying about anything else. Damon was just stepping out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist when Ric stepped into his room. Damon smirked at first until he caught the look on Ric’s face. His smirk fell into a look of concern even as Ric said, “I think we have a problem.”

“What now?” Damon groaned heading for his closet to grab some clothes that he put on quickly. 

“I’m having hallucinations,” Ric explained as calmly as he could manage. 

“What kind of hallucinations? How? Did one of the hybrids bite you?” he asked worriedly. As far as he knew only a werewolf bite could cause a vampire to hallucinate but Ric looked okay otherwise and he shouldn’t if he was already in the hallucination stage of the werewolf bite. 

“Blood everywhere, the word killer written on the mirror in blood, and Connor taunting me,” Ric explained. “And no. I’m perfectly fine physically.”

“That’s not good,” Damon said thoughtfully. “It could just be a guilt spiral?” 

Ric shook his head. “No. It’s definitely not that. These hallucinations are too real to just be a subconscious manifestation of my guilt. Especially since I’m not feeling that guilty.”

“What else could it be?” Damon asked confused. 

“I don’t know,” Ric shrugged. “But I think we need more information on Connor and the whole hunter thing.”

“Yeah. That’s probably a good place to start. I can handle this if you want to rest…”

“No,” Ric shook his head. “Keeping busy will help. I mean, I wouldn’t risk going into a dangerous situation, but getting information and brainstorming I can do.” 

“Okay. Let’s go talk to Stefan then. See if Klaus spilled anything else that might help,” Damon said, leading the way to Stefan’s room. He walked in without knocking. “We’re gonna need to know everything you do about the hunters,” Damon told him. 

“What? Why?” Stefan asked confused. 

“Just spill,” Damon snapped irritably. 

“The brotherhood of the five were given their powers and abilities by a witch so that they could hunt vampires. Their tattoos grow with each kill and eventually reveal a map to where to find the cure for vampirism. When one dies, another takes their place. That’s pretty much all I know.” 

“Created by witches, you say?” Damon said with a groan. 

“Which means this is probably some kind of curse for killing one,” Ric sighed. 

“What’s a curse?” Stefan asked confused, and Ric explained about the hallucinations. 

“I’ll call Bonnie,” Damon sighed. “If this is a curse, we’re gonna need her help to break it.”

“I’ll start hitting the books to see if we can find anything that might help,” Ric suggested. 

“I’ll help you,” Stefan offered. “At least until Klaus’ plane lands and he finds out I lost the hunter and a hybrid.” 

“Well you know we’ve got your back when he comes to kill you,” Damon huffed. 

Once they were in the library, Ric asked Stefan, “Any idea when this witch made the hunters?” 

“Around 1100 AD,” Stefan shrugged. 

“At least that gives us somewhere to start,” Ric said. 

They had just pulled the first few books when Damon came back. “She doesn’t know what she can do, but she’s looking. She promised to help if any of us find anything though.” 

“That’s good at least,” Ric sighed with relief, sliding a few books over to Damon. 

“So what’s your plan for the cure now? Once we get this curse handled of course,” Damon asked as he flipped through the books, knowing that they were all perfectly capable of carrying on a conversation as they skimmed. 

“I don’t know. Find another hunter. There’s supposed to be five of them,” Stefan said. 

“Are you nuts?” Ric asked incredulously. “One of them almost wiped us all out and I ended up cursed for killing him and you want to go looking for more?” 

“I gotta say, I’m with Ric on this one,” Damon said wryly. “And you know that if you even think of telling Klaus that Jeremy is a potential hunter Elena will skin you alive.” 

“I wasn’t going to bring Jeremy into this,” Stefan assured them both. 

“Good. Because I would help her,” Ric said firmly. 

Damon noticed how twitchy and distracted Ric was being. “You good, Ric?” 

“Fine,” he told him. “Just trying to ignore them.” He knew the best way to handle hallucinations after all. Curse or not. 

“Drink?” Damon offered, getting up to pour some. 

“I better not. The clearer I can keep my head the better right now,” Ric told him. “I wouldn’t say no to some blood though. Keep the bloodlust at a minimum too.” 

“That’s probably smart,” Stefan agreed. “I’ll go get some.”

“Grab me one too, Stef,” Damon called after him, heading back to the table with his own drink. Damon reached over and took Ric’s hand. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked softly. 

“No. But I’m as okay as I can be at the moment,” Ric told him. “I promise to let you know if it gets too bad and you need to lock me up.”

“Lock you up?” Damon asked. “What kind of hallucinations are we talking about?” 

“They’re trying to get me to kill myself,” Ric admitted and Damon growled. “I won’t. Don’t worry. But if I feel tempted…”

“We’ll take care of it, Ric. I promise. For now, just keep ignoring them.” Damon pulled his hand away when he heard Stefan’s footsteps coming back.

Ric was getting more and more twitchy the later it got, until Damon sent him to bed. “Part of keeping your head clear is getting enough rest. We’ll keep at it, but you need to sleep.”

“Just…listen out for me?” Ric asked him. 

“Absolutely,” Damon promised. 

Stefan had heard the conversation about what the hallucinations were trying to make him do, so he didn’t question that request, but once Ric was in bed, he suggested, “Maybe we should sleep in shifts. That way one of us always has an ear out.” 

“Good idea,” Damon nodded. “You can sleep first.” There was no way he was gonna be able to sleep right now. Not until they got this fixed and Ric back to normal. He wasn’t going to tell Stefan that though. It would just cause an argument they couldn’t afford. 

“I’m still good for now,” Stefan told him. 

“Well so am I,” Damon said so neither of them went to bed yet. Stefan did about two hours later though when his eyelids started drooping. When he got back about six hours later, Damon still refused to go to bed though and stood firm through every argument that Stefan threw at him. 

Ric joined them again a few hours later, bringing coffee for all of them and looking like death warmed over. When Stefan left the room to call Elena and check in on her, Damon asked Ric, “You didn’t sleep well?” 

“Not really. I dozed off and on all night, but the hallucinations don’t seem to want me to sleep much,” Ric sighed. “Not the first time I’ve been short on sleep though.”

“Well luckily we have plenty of coffee in the house,” Damon said worriedly, leaning over for a slow kiss and brushing his thumb over the dark circles under Ric’s eyes. “I wish there was more I could do.”

“I know,” Ric smiled softly at him, catching his hand and turning to kiss his palm. “We’ll handle it though.” 

Not long after Stefan got back, Damon’s phone rang. When he saw it was Bonnie he put her on speakerphone and set the phone in the middle of the table. “Whatcha got?” he asked. 

“Do you know anything about the witch that created the hunters?” Bonnie asked. 

“No. Nothing more than I already told Damon which I’m sure he passed on,” Stefan told her. 

“Okay, well…IF the witch was from my line and IF I’m strong enough, I MIGHT be able to break the curse with a family spell,” Bonnie told them. 

“That’s a lot of ifs and mights, but it’s better than the bupkus we’ve got. What do we need to do?” Damon asked. 

“Well it needs to be done where the curse first took effect…”

“Where I first started seeing the hallucinations or where I killed the hunter?” Ric asked. 

“Where you killed the hunter,” Bonnie told him. “And curses usually dig in deeper the more fuel they get and the longer they go so sooner would be better, and try not to acknowledge the hallucinations in any way if you can avoid it.” 

“Okay. We’ll head there now,” Damon said, snapping his book closed. “Meet us at the grill. It’ll be easier to retrace our steps from there.” It would be easiest to go the way they went before, but there was no way he was going through that sewer again unless it was the only option. 

“Okay. Give me an hour to get the supplies together and I’ll be there,” Bonnie promised.

“I’m gonna hang here if you guys can handle this,” Stefan said. 

Damon frowned worriedly at his brother. “What’s wrong?” Please don’t let it be another crisis. 

“Elena and I broke up,” Stefan admitted. “Nothing major in the grand scheme of things, but if I’m not needed I would rather stay here.”

“Sure. Fine. Wallow all you like. We can handle this,” Damon assured him. Once he and Ric were in the car, Damon reached out and took his hand. “Use me for an anchor if you need to,” he told him. He had noticed him getting worse and worse all morning. 

“Thank you, Damon,” Ric said relieved as he threaded their fingers together and when he found himself suddenly holding hands with Connor, he closed his eyes and squeezed, focusing on the feel of Damon’s ring and the familiar long slender fingers and when he opened his eyes again, he was looking into the bright blue worried eyes of Damon. Ric gave him an encouraging smile. He was okay. 

They ended up having to wait almost half an hour for Bonnie to get there, and Ric studiously avoided the bar in the meantime for the same reason he hadn’t drank the night before. Once Bonnie was there, they snuck through the back and down into the tunnels, Damon carrying her bag without complaint. Not only was he a lot stronger than she was, but for what she was doing for them, without even a token argument, she earned it. Even if it didn’t work. 

Once Ric pointed out the exact spot, she had him stand there and put a circle of candles around him and then took some flowery vines and weaved them together just inside the circle of candles. Once that was done, she sat down in front of him with the grimoire open in her lap and started to chant. The candles flared to life and Damon could actually see a thin black trail leading off of Ric and draining into the vines that slowly died as it continued. Bonnie didn’t stop chanting until there was no more blackness coming from Ric and all the vines were dead. She had a spot of blood trailing from her nose, but otherwise seemed okay. “Did it work?” she asked hopefully. 

“I think so,” Ric said relieved. “The hallucinations are gone and I feel lighter.”

“Good. I’m glad,” Bonnie sighed and hugged him. 

“Thank you, Bonnie. We owe you one,” Damon said with a smile. 

“I’ll remember that,” she chuckled, despite the fact that they both knew about the life debt hanging over them. She wondered if him saying things like that helped to keep the debt magic at bay. By him claiming to owe her it didn’t allow her to owe him. It would make sense if the magic was based on intent which was the impression she got. Either way, she would play along.


	11. Chapter 11

Once that was finished, they headed back up through the grill and Ric took the opportunity to have a few drinks now that he was hallucination free. It was his first public appearance since his psychotic break and it was definitely noticed, not that either of them realized that at the time. They made it a relatively early night though before they headed back to the boarding house by ten pm. “Did it work?” Stefan asked as soon as they walked in the door. 

Damon winced. He knew they had forgotten something. “Yep. Curse is gone.” 

“That’s great,” Stefan said relieved. 

“Have you heard from Klaus?” Ric asked. 

“Yeah. Apparently since I’ve proven I can’t be trusted, I’m being cut out of the plan to get the cure. On the plus side, it will still be going to Elena either way since he needs her human to create more hybrids.”

“Hey that’s a win/win as far as I see it,” Damon shrugged. “None of the danger, all of the benefit.” 

“That’s definitely a good thing. But after not really sleeping last night, I’m gonna go grab some blood and then crash,” Ric said exhaustedly. Those few drinks had hit him hard too with his exhaustion levels. 

“I could use a little pick-me-up too,” Damon said following Ric down to the basement. Once they were down there, Damon crashed their lips together, both in celebration of the fact that the curse was removed and as a goodnight. Before things could get too heated though, Damon pulled away. Ric needed some rest after everything and Stefan was home. They both grabbed a bag of blood and headed back upstairs, Ric to his room and Damon to the living room. 

Damon didn’t stay up too late himself though. He had an early morning. When he got up, he was already in his full tux and ready to go by the time he made it down to the kitchen and was glad that the coffee was already made. “You look fancy,” Ric chuckled. 

“Ugh, don’t remind me,” Damon muttered. “Stupid Miss Mystic Falls pageant is today and guess who got roped into being one of the judges.”

“Oh, ouch,” Ric winced, trying not to laugh. 

“Ouch is right. Now I have to spend all day sitting in a room listening to contestant interviews and looking at portfolios and schmoozing with stuck up idiots and basically doing everything that no sane person would ever find interesting or enjoyable.” 

“Then why’d you agree to do it?” Ric asked as he lost the battle with his laughter. 

“Because Carol Lockwood caught me at a particularly bad time and played the whole ‘we’ll feel so much safer with you looking out for things, Damon’ card,” he mocked. “Basically, I’m a sucker.” 

Ric snorted and put a hand on Damon’s shoulder. “No, you’re not a sucker. You just occasionally have those moments like anyone else, and that woman is an expert at spotting and exploiting them.” 

“Sometimes being a founding family sucks,” Damon grumbled. 

“I can see that.”

“You’re coming to the pageant part this afternoon right?” Damon asked hopefully. 

“Yeah, not a chance. I don’t have any reason to go this time, so I’m giving it a miss,” Ric shook his head. 

“I’m not enough of a reason?” Damon teased. 

“Sorry, I’m not having a sucker moment right now,” Ric laughed as he leaned down for a quick kiss. “But you have fun with that.” 

“Bastard,” Damon muttered as Ric walked out of the room. He finished the last of his coffee before he headed out so he wouldn’t be late. Well lat/er/. He was already about an hour late, but he knew how these things went. The first hour was just gossip anyway.

The day went about how he’d expected, and Damon was ready to stake himself in record time, but he forced a look of polite interest on his face while tuning everything out as much as possible. It was much easier once the event actually started and there was more to draw his attention. When the time came to choose the winner, he just went with popular opinion and finally it was over. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy though. Damon got dragged into a ‘council’ meeting, despite the fact that the current council consisted of himself, Carol Lockwood, and Liz Forbes, all of who were pro-vampire which defeated the whole purpose of the council. 

It turned out the point of the impromptu meeting was to discuss Ric, which he supposed was fair since the last they’d seen of him he’d been outing them all and turning the council against them. He tried to tell the short version of the story, but a hundred questions later, they knew everything that wasn’t too personal to share. Of course, they only understood about half of it and just settled with the knowledge that he was back to his old self, now a vampire, and no longer dead…in a manner of speaking, making the entire exercise pointless. 

By the time he got home he was beyond ready to find an excuse to kick his brother out and enjoy the evening with Ric properly. Finally. Unfortunately, it didn’t work that way. He had been home all of five minutes, and hadn’t even had a chance to change, much less go find Ric in the library before the doorbell rang. Damon opened it and let Elena in as Stefan came out to see who was there. “I can’t stay at home anymore,” Elena said sadly. “Jeremy and I had a fight.”

“Pick a room,” Stefan said sadly as he headed for the door. “I’ll crash somewhere else.” 

Damon resisted the urge to sigh. He got rid of one, now there was just one to go. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help Elena in any way he could. Really. But she had other friends she could stay with. He wasn’t going to go so far as to kick her out, obviously, but maybe a few hints could work. He would at least try to cheer her up first though. He poured her a glass of whiskey and handed it over as he sat next to her. When she just thanked him and took a drink he looked curiously at her. “I was being polite. I thought you hated whiskey.”

“My brother hates me,” she told him. 

“Welcome to the club,” he said wryly, raising his glass to her. 

“Jeremy hates me, Stefan wants to fix me, and Caroline flat out admitted that she doesn’t like me this way. I think it’s safe to say that I’m not so great at this whole vampire thing,” she chuckled humorlessly. 

“You want to know what I think?” Damon asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you more alive.” She needed at least one person in her corner. He wished Ric would come join them. He was so much better at this cheering up stuff than Damon was. He must be really lost in whatever book he was reading to not have heard him come home. 

“That dance that they did today…it kind of reminded me of when…” 

“When we danced together,” Damon said nostalgically. 

“I wanted to dance with you today,” Elena said nervously, losing herself in his eyes. 

And just like that it went from comforting friend to awkward in record time. Damon looked away, breaking her gaze. He should have expected this once she and Stefan broke up, but he had been too preoccupied to consider it. “Elena, don’t,” he shook his head ruefully. 

“Why not?” she echoed his words from Denver. 

“Because you made your choice. And it wasn’t me,” Damon said evenly, trying not to spill the secret of him and Ric if he didn’t need to. 

“I told you then that I couldn’t think about always. That it was just ‘for now’,” she pointed out. 

“So…what? I was just supposed to sit around pining for you for the rest of forever? Wait for the second choice to get a turn?” he scoffed. 

“Well, no…but…” When he put it like that it was pretty stupid. 

“I’ve moved on, Elena,” he broke the news. Maybe if he was cryptic it would be okay. 

“Moved on like…”

“Like I’m seeing someone,” Damon said bluntly. “Someone that I love. And I’m happy.” 

“Oh…okay…wh-who is she?” Elena asked. 

“I can’t say. They want to keep things secret for now,” Damon told her.

“It can’t be very serious if she wants to hide it,” Elena huffed. She hated secrets. Especially after the mess with Stefan and Klaus. 

“It’s complicated,” Damon told her. “But it is very serious.”

“So you don’t love me at all anymore? Just like that?” Elena asked heartbrokenly. 

“Of course, I still love you Elena. Part of me will always love you. But we could never have worked anyway,” Damon explained. 

“Why not?” Elena asked confused. “What’s changed?” 

“The fact that I’ve faced reality,” Damon chuckled. “You could never accept me for all that I am. You could never /love/ all of me. Not the broken bits or the darker parts. You may love the good parts, but that’s not enough. If we were together, I would kill myself trying to keep that part at the surface and keep everything else bottled up, but that can’t last. I would break again. My darkness would overwhelm me and then I’d be more lost than ever because I would lose you in the process.”

“Then why even do all this to begin with? Why…”

“Because I lost myself in the dream of what might have been,” Damon admitted. “If I could be the good guy all the time. If I could go back to the person I used to be before I became a vampire. Where your love could save me from the darkness in myself.”

“Maybe it could…”

“No, Elena. The world doesn’t work that way. /People/ don’t work that way,” Damon shook his head. “I can’t be fixed. Not by you or by anyone. Not enough anyway. But now I’ve found what I should have been looking for all along. Someone that loves all of me. Broken, dark, light, and all of it. Someone strong enough to support me and keep me grounded. A /partner/.” 

“A partner who won’t even let you tell people who she is,” Elena pointed out. “If she really loved you, she would want the world to know.”

“Soon,” Damon smiled. “Like I said, it’s complicated. But it’ll all be in the open soon enough. You’ll understand then.” When Elena just deflated sadly and didn’t seem to have anything else to say, Damon felt bad for her. “Now…if you really just want a dance, I would be happy to oblige. I do enjoy dancing. But if you’re looking for more than that…”

“No, it’s fine. I get it,” Elena sighed and blinked back the tears from her eyes. “I think I’ll go stay with Caroline or Bonnie. I-it would be a little awkward being here tonight.”

“Okay,” Damon nodded, both sad for her and elated that he and Ric could finally have the house to themselves. “But know that I still consider you a friend, Elena, and my door is always open.”

“Thank you, Damon. I still consider you a friend too. We’ll talk later, okay?” she said hopefully. 

“Anytime,” Damon smiled and hugged her tightly before she left. 

Once her car drove away, Damon turned around to see Ric standing in the doorway with a smile. “You know…if you’re handing out dances…”

“If you wanted to dance you should have come to the pageant,” Damon teased with a laugh even as he held out his hand to his boyfriend.


	12. Chapter 12

Ric had been about to put his book away and go see Damon when he heard Elena arrive so he waited. If he was honest with himself, it was partially to see what happened. He still wasn’t completely sure that Damon would really choose him if it came down to it. Mostly though, it was to give them the privacy to hash this out before things went too far for their friendship to bounce back from. Or give Damon the chance to change his mind. Whichever way it went. 

He knew that Damon knew he was here, and if Elena actually bothered to listen, she would know he was here too. He was being too quiet for any human to pick up on, but plenty loud enough for a vampire to hear. He also knew that they would know that he could hear every word so he didn’t have to feel bad for eavesdropping. It took a lot more concentration to tune it out then it did to listen in. He was worried at first, but when things turned serious, Damon shut her down gently. Hearing Damon tell her that he’d moved on and was happy made him smile. 

What Elena said about keeping them secret hit him harder than he would have expected though. She was right. He should want the world to know. He had wanted to get settled back into his life first, but maybe he’d done this in the wrong order. Maybe he should have been building a new life with Damon from the start. Maybe it was time to come out in the open. He wasn’t going to let her opinion push him into a hasty decision though. Tomorrow would be soon enough to consider it. Once she was gone, he put his book down and headed out to see if the offer of a dance was open for him too. 

Ric chuckled at Damon’s teasing him and took his hand. There was a bit of awkwardness in the first spin since Damon had to adjust to a partner taller than him, but they figured it out quickly. It was clear that Damon would be leading either way. He was by far the more skilled and graceful of the two. This wasn’t Ric’s first relationship with a man. There had been a couple in college. Before Isobel caught his eye. This was his first time dancing with a man though, and it showed. 

Damon was a skilled enough leader that Ric was mostly able to follow, but there was more than once that Ric’s habit of leading tried to take over and caused some stumbles. He was glad that Damon never made him feel ridiculous for it though. He’d just chuckle and they’d correct and continue. He was even more glad that they were dancing privately at home. Maybe by the next founder’s event they’d be practiced enough for Ric to be comfortable doing this in public. They danced for almost half an hour before things changed. 

As much fun as they were having, they both knew that this was just the leadup for a different kind of fun, and when Damon intentionally angled a spin towards a crash, Ric took the opportunity to crash their lips together too, assuming that had been Damon’s intention. Judging by his reaction, it had been. It didn’t take long for their party to be moved upstairs to Damon’s room and Damon turned his phone off completely. “I don’t give a shit if there’s another emergency. I’m indisposed,” he said with Ric gave him a funny look. Ric grinned and took the hint, turning his phone off too. 

When they were done, Ric curled up to Damon’s side as they caught their breath, and Damon said, “I don’t know what time Stefan is going to be back in the morning.”

“I don’t care,” Ric told him. He wasn’t quite ready to make the decision to come out yet, but if they got found so be it. He wasn’t leaving this bed, or Damon’s arms, until morning. Damon just grinned and pulled Ric tighter against him, giving him another loving kiss before settling down to go to sleep. 

The next morning Damon woke up first and ran a hand through Ric’s hair for a few minutes before getting up. He dressed as quietly as he could and headed down to start the coffee, knowing that Ric wouldn’t be much longer. It was just finishing up when he heard Stefan’s car so he grabbed another cup and poured some for his brother too. Once Stefan came in, he took the coffee before asking confusedly, “What the hell happened?” 

“What do you mean?” Damon asked curiously. 

“I talked to Caroline. She said that you turned Elena down?” Stefan asked as he tried to wrap his head around it. 

“Yeah. I did,” Damon told him. “Because I’ve found love…and happiness…elsewhere.” 

“Yeah, and what’s this about a secret girlfriend? How do I not know about her? You’re like, always here anymore.”

Ric took a deep breath before setting his decision in his mind. He knew that Damon wouldn’t mind. He’d wanted them to be in the open from the start. He stepped into the room as he said, “I object to the /girlfriend/ part,” with a laugh, wrapping his arms around Damon’s stomach from behind. 

Damon turned to look at him curiously before smiling and leaning back against him. “I never said girlfriend. That was just an assumption that I didn’t correct.”

“You…but…and he…I don’t,” Stefan stammered for a moment as Ric placed a quick kiss on Damon’s lips and reached for a cup before going to sit down. “Why keep it a secret?” 

“That would be my fault. I wanted to take a week or two to get settled back into my life before facing the whole relationship scrutiny. In hindsight, probably not the best idea,” Ric chuckled. 

“That…does make sense,” Stefan admitted. “But when did you two…I mean…”

“I had one of those ‘beat over the head with a frying pan’ moments as he was dying in the crypt before he turned,” Damon chuckled. “Then I went on a long rant to his grave about it…”

“Which I heard since I spent a lot of my time on the other side watching over Damon and since I’d been in love with him for a while, I sent a message through Jeremy. A cryptic one that only Damon would get because of his rant, obviously. That’s when Emily found me and offered to help send me back so we could be together. She’d been watching over Damon too and wanted him to have the chance to be happy,” Ric finished the story. 

“So you’ve been together since pretty much the moment you got back?” Stefan asked, getting nods from both of them. “Okay. I get it now then. But you really should tell Elena. Soon. She doesn’t know what to think about any of this.” 

“We will,” Ric promised. “No more secrets.” 

“Finally,” Damon said with a joking relieved sigh, pulling chuckles from everyone. 

They told Elena that afternoon, but it was another week before she managed to catch Ric alone for a conversation she’d been wanting to have since she found out. “How can you love him after everything that he’s done?” she asked him. 

“How can you?” Ric asked amusedly. 

“It’s not easy,” she admitted. 

“Loving him is the easiest thing I’ve ever done,” Ric told her. “There is a lot you don’t know about Damon, Elena.”

“But you do?” she asked curiously. She’d thought she knew him pretty well. She’d managed to move past all the bad things that he did, but they still haunted her. When he’d mentioned that Ric loved him for all that too, she couldn’t understand it. Loving the person he’d become was different. 

“You can learn a lot about someone when you drink together,” Ric laughed. “Especially with as chatty a drunk as Damon is. Even when he’s a pissy drunk it usually comes in rants.” 

“Right. Yeah. That makes sense,” Elena realized. 

“What most people don’t realize about Damon is that he takes the weight of the world on his shoulders. He carries all the burdens that no one should ever have to carry.”

“What do you mean?” 

“Okay, as an example, the night of the sixties dance when Klaus attacked. He made the decision to make it seem like he’d sacrificed Bonnie. And if it had come to it, he would have actually sacrificed her. Because in those situations /someone/ has to make the hard decisions. The life and death choices. He takes on that burden, and the consequences of it, so that no one else has to. And he accepts the hatred, anger, and disdain of the people he cares most about for it.”

“There could have been another way,” Elena argued. 

“No. There wasn’t,” Ric told her. “There isn’t always another way. Especially when things are happening and changing that fast. Even when there’s time to think there isn’t always another way. When there is a threat, he handles it. No matter how messy it is. No matter how difficult it is. No matter how much it hurts. He kills so you don’t have to. So Stefan doesn’t have to. Or Caroline. Or even Bonnie. He carries it all. The guilt, the hatred, the consequences of his decisions.”

“That’s not the only reason he kills though. He’s killed plenty of people who weren’t a threat,” Elena pointed out. 

“Yes. He has. Because no one can carry the burdens that he does without breaking sometimes. And when he does, he falls into dark places. But the fact that he manages to claw his way back out, all on his own, and then pick up those burdens again is a testament to his strength, Elena.”

“But he killed you…just because he was in a bad mood,” she said confused. 

“Yeah. He did. Because even when he’s not in a dark place, sometimes he can’t help but snap. He has a temper. But think about this Elena…how exactly did he kill me?” 

“He snapped your neck. Why?” 

“And how do vampires get each other out of the way and end fights like that?” Ric asked. 

“But you weren’t a vampire then,” Elena pointed out. 

“I know. But when your temper snaps, it’s too easy to fall back on the familiar. What you’ve always done. In that split-second action his mind didn’t kick in enough to say ‘oh this person is a human so I have to be more careful’. He just reacted. I mean…how many human friends do you think he’s had in his life? Not a lot. It’s not something that he’s used to taking into consideration.”

“I never thought of it like that,” Elena said thoughtfully. “But that doesn’t make it right.” 

“And that’s exactly why you and Damon could never work. You’re so hung up on right and wrong, dark and light, good and bad, but the world doesn’t work that way. Especially the supernatural world. Damon doesn’t exist in those extremes. He’s a shade of grey. Sometimes a lighter grey, sometimes a darker grey, but he’s not good or bad. He just is,” Ric explained. “And he needs someone that can accept him as he is. Someone who can bring him back when he goes too far without criticizing him for it. Someone who can hold him together when he breaks without judgement. Someone who can help him carry the burdens he takes on.”

“Is that why you killed Connor? So he wouldn’t have to?” Elena was starting to get it. 

“No, I killed Connor so /you/ wouldn’t have to,” Ric told her. “Damon can handle it. He just happened to be tied up with Stefan at that moment so it fell to me. I can handle it too. That’s why we work. We can share the burdens between us. Support each other when things get tough. I don’t doubt that this life will break me just like it’s broken Damon a dozen times and when it does, he’ll be there for me just like I’ll be there for him and we’ll make it through.” 

“You’re right. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t handle it. I could never just stand by and watch him spiral without doing anything I could to stop him. I could never just accept him hurting people. Even bad people. It’s just not who I am,” Elena shook her head. 

“And that’s nothing to be ashamed of, Elena,” Ric said gently. “The world needs more people like you. But it also needs people like Damon. And those of us who bridge the gap. Never be ashamed of being who you are Elena. Even if you can’t fit where you might want to. You still have a place.”

“Yeah, a vampire who can’t handle being one,” she huffed. 

“You’ll adjust,” Ric assured her. “You’re far from the only vampire with this problem.” 

“That’s what I told Jeremy,” Elena said sadly. “That there are so many vampires out there that want the cure and some that probably deserve it more than me. How can I accept it knowing all that? Most vampires never wanted this life any more than I did. What makes me special?” 

“That’s what the fight was about?” Ric asked. He’d yet to get the rundown on that particular rift. 

“Yeah. He thinks it’s a betrayal if I turn down the chance to stop being a vampire,” Elena sighed. “He’ll accept me like this when there’s no other choice, but otherwise…”

“I’ll talk to him,” Ric promised. “You’re right about everything you said, but you also need to consider this…sometimes opportunities come up, and you have every right to take them, no matter who loses out if you do.” 

“Okay, but take Stefan for example. With all his blood issues, if anyone should get the cure it’s him. Being a vampire is literal torture for him. I can live on human blood just fine,” Elena explained. 

“I get that. And if you get the cure and want to offer it to him, then that’s your choice too. But don’t feel like you /have/ to pass up on the opportunity just because someone else might want it more,” Ric told her. “But also remember that all this is hypothetical. IF the cure even exists, the chances of it being found are so slim as to be almost non-existent.” 

“Yeah. That makes sense. I just wish Jeremy could see that,” Elena sighed. 

“He will,” Ric assured her. 

“Thanks,” she smiled. “And thanks for making Damon happy and being what he needs. And I’m glad that he makes you happy too.” 

“Thanks, Elena. And you know that even though Damon and I are together now, it doesn’t mean that I love you and Jeremy any less. I’ll still be here for both of you in any way I can.”

Elena grinned at him before a spot of mischief lit in her eyes as she heard Damon’s car drive up. “So if you’re kinda like our father figure…and you’re with Damon…does that make him like our step-father figure?” 

“Oh dear god, please never say anything like that again,” Damon groaned in horror as he walked in the door. Ric knew that she was joking and he and Elena both burst into laughter at Damon’s reaction as he set a stack of Styrofoam coolers on the table. “Blood delivery. Grab if you need before I take them downstairs.”

“We’ll help,” Elena offered, grabbing half the stack. Ric grabbed the rest of the stack, so Damon grabbed half of Stefan’s stack as he came in and they all worked to load up the downstairs fridge.


End file.
